Rising Stars: Meet Monis Rose of Culver City

Today we’d like to introduce you to Monis Rose.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
There’s a Chinese proverb: “A crooked tree lives its own life, but a straight tree is turned into wood.” I am the crooked tree.

Ask me when it all began and I can’t give you one answer, because I keep finding new starting points. Was it leaving Arizona for LaLa Land almost twenty years ago? Cheffing in hot kitchens in my twenties? Producing digital content for the Food Network? Meeting the love of my life at thirty? Interviewing showrunners, directors, and stars as a journalist? Paddling out to catch consistent waves at forty? Or yelling “action” for the first time as a director?

Every one of those was a seed, and none of them came with permission. I got where I am by giving myself that permission to succeed, to fail, to take risks. I greenlit myself and didn’t wait for anyone else to.

Los Angeles taught me the rest. I fell in love with all of it, from street al pastor to beachside fish tacos and every taco in between. I made peace with traffic, where three miles can swallow an hour. I cross the hill, go east from the Westside, and head into the Valley without complaint. I learned to love the ordinary even more than the extraordinary.

I’m not chasing a dream. I’m hunting.

In a town built on the hustle, everyone is chasing. But when you chase something, you’re always behind it, out of breath, and reacting to whatever it does. A hunter does the opposite. A hunter learns the terrain, stays patient, shows up prepared, and moves when the moment is right. That shift took the panic out of my work. I stopped asking “why haven’t I caught it yet?” and started asking “am I ready when it appears?”

That’s why I love the hard work. The dream is always out there, but the person I become each day while hunting is the biggest prize of all. Any success is just the external byproduct of that internal foundation.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
The real struggle was the voice in the room. Pick one thing, they said. Be a chef or a filmmaker. A journalist or a producer. Jack of all trades, master of none. People repeat that line like it’s gospel. It isn’t. The full line goes: a jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one. Somebody cut off the second half and sold the first as wisdom.

That was the turning point. The “or” was never real. Every fork in the road is an “and.”

Chef and journalist. Producer and director. Westside and Eastside. I can have the cake and eat the whole thing too.

Smooth roads are fine for guys in sports cars with thin Pirelli tires. Nice until the pavement ends. I’m a Tacoma. Built for the struggle. Lifted, muddy, and happy about it.

My heart, mind, spirit, and gut were built for off-road. When the waves are big and the dolphins and sharks are both in the water, I paddle out.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
What sets me apart? I asked my wife. She said, “You’re weird.”

I’m okay with that.

Rihanna once walked up to me in a Beverly Hills Bristol Farms, right into my face, posse and all, and said, “You know why I came up to you and no one else? Cause you’re a big nerd. And that’s a good thing, so keep at it.”

So that’s two votes: weird and nerd. I’ll take both.

What do I do? I give the world stories. It’s the thing I was born to do.

Since day one, that’s been my number one intention, and it has taken many forms. I was a chef. I produced digital content for the Food Network. I hosted the Restaurant Fiction podcast for over 100 episodes. Now I’m a director, on my fourth film in two years. The medium changes, but the mission never does.

What am I most proud of? Being exactly who I am: Monis Rose.

Who is that? My wife and Rihanna seem to have a pretty good idea. I’m still peeling back the layers of the onion, and I hope I never reach the center.

In the meantime, I surf every day, I direct, and I make the best New York cheesecake you’ve ever had in your entire life. I’m happy to be tested on that last one.

We love surprises, fun facts and unexpected stories. Is there something you can share that might surprise us?
Two things. Neither one is a secret. Nobody asks.

First: I hate ketchup and celery.

Ketchup is a cover-up. It’s sugar in a red coat, and it walks into a meal and silences everything else in the room. Celery is water with a bad attitude. It has exactly one honest job: sweated down in a mirepoix, where it disappears into something better. Anywhere else, it’s a suspect.

I was a chef. I’ve earned my opinions.

Second: I carry the epitaph of Josh Deets from Lonesome Dove tattooed on my body.

Deets was the scout. He rode ahead, saw the country clearly, and died on the trail without ceremony. The words they left over his grave are with me permanently.

It’s my memento mori. Every day could be the last one, so I treat each one that way. I’m not morbid about it. It works the opposite way: it keeps me in the now. I surf, I cook, I direct, and I don’t save the good stuff for later.

People assume the ketchup thing is the strange part. It isn’t.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @themonisrose
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@SeeLifeFilms